“Have golems assist in golem production?”
I slowly turned Makina’s words over in my head.
She gave a small nod and continued.
“Yes. Up until now, all golems have been created by Lord Viktor himself, correct?”
“Right.”
“So there has always been a limit to how many could be produced. But if we golems assist in the process, that number can be increased. Eventually, it should be possible to hand off the entire production pipeline to golems.”
So that’s what she meant.
The advantage of being able to produce golems beyond my personal time constraints would be enormous.
And if it went well, there’d come a point where I wouldn’t have to do anything at all — now that would be something.
Mwahaha, the ideal life of a do-nothing is within reach……!!
Once that day came, I’d spend every hour lazing around with Makina.
……Though by the time it happened, some other work would probably have sprung up to fill the gap.
“And that isn’t the only benefit. If you were to develop several more autonomous-type golems like myself, technological development could accelerate as well.”
“Oh right — golems can research around the clock without sleeping.”
“That is part of it, but our logic circuits are also capable of improvement. An upgraded logic circuit golem develops an even higher-performance golem. Repeat that cycle, and a dramatic leap in capability over a short period becomes possible.”
So what that meant was — a golem that had grown smarter through upgraded circuitry would build an even smarter golem, and repeating that process would keep pushing capability higher and higher.
You’d expect nothing less from a golem — it was a concept I never would have hit on myself.
……If this worked out well, couldn’t it produce a staggeringly intelligent golem and accelerate technological development at a terrifying pace?
The place this loop ultimately led to felt like it could be something truly extraordinary.
“Isn’t that insanely broken? We might end up with a golem like a legendary sage.”
“……Sorry, I’m not really following.”
“I’m only getting a vague sense that it would be something incredible.”
Perhaps because she was a mage who worked with her head?
Misha seemed to grasp what Makina was describing with reasonable accuracy, while Ganz and Alicia appeared to be somewhat lost.
So Misha broke it down a little for the two of them.
“The idea is: use Makina to make a slightly smarter Super-Makina. Then use Super-Makina to make an even smarter Super-Duper-Makina. Keep doing that and you end up with something crazy.”
“Ahhh, when you put it like that, yeah — that’s pretty wild.”
“Oh, now I get it too!”
It seemed Misha’s explanation had gotten Ganz and Alicia most of the way to understanding what Makina had been saying.
Maybe sensing a bright future, both of them were visibly excited now.
That said, this strategy wasn’t without its holes.
“……Well, building autonomous-type golems requires high-quality magic stones. I want to save the Red Dragon’s magic stone for other things, so it’s not something that’ll happen overnight.”
Crafting a golem’s logic circuit requires magic stones — materials that can be harvested from monsters, with larger and higher-quality stones coming from more powerful monsters.
If I were to build an autonomous-type golem with performance on par with Makina, I’d need a dragon-class magic stone at minimum.
“For now, let’s focus on increasing our non-autonomous golem numbers first. Once we have more golems, all kinds of work should go more smoothly.”
“Right. So — let’s produce golems alongside getting the village set up, and get our defenses in order. With an eye toward eventually automating golem production itself using golems.”
That settled the rough direction of things going forward.
Build up the village while producing golems, and prepare for demi-human raids.
Then gather residents, expand the scale, and keep growing the village larger and larger.
And waiting on the other side of all that — surely a comfortable life as a domain lord!
“Then lastly, allow me to show you the bath.”
“Oh, right! We did ask for a bath!”
“I completely forgot about the most important thing! We have a bath!”
At Makina’s words, we finally remembered the bath existed.
The single most important facility of all, and we’d completely blanked on it — what were we thinking!
Makina smiled at our absentmindedness and beckoned us along.
“This way. It needed to be near the spring given the amount of water it uses.”
And so, following Makina’s lead for about thirty seconds of walking.
A cabin about one size larger than the others around it came into view.
The cabin had two entrances — apparently split by gender.
“Come on in.”
Led inside, we first entered a space that served as a changing room.
Wooden slats were laid across the floor, allowing water to drain away easily.
And beyond that sat a large wooden bathtub.
A wooden trough was mounted through a partition, channeling water down into it.
“There is a stove set up outside. The idea is to heat the water there and channel it in.”
“Hm, nicely put together.”
“The heating section is a little small, so there may be some inconvenience. The materials available to us were limited.”
Makina looked a bit crestfallen.
But for an untamed frontier, having these facilities at all was more than enough.
For the hot water, we could supplement with Misha’s magic to some extent anyway.
“No — Makina, you did well. You know what, let’s all take a morning bath while we’re at it.”
“Yes!!”
Everyone’s voices rang out together.
And so we took our first bath in this village.
Not yet knowing that Makina’s proposal today would lead to a great leap forward——.